Got Fascism? : Obama Advisor Promotes 'Cognitive Infiltration'
By Guest Post • Jan 13th, 2010 at 12:24 • Category: Analysis, Internet and Communication, Newswire, Resistance
Your government appointees at work: Cass Sunstein seeks "cognitive" provocateurs.
WRITTEN By Marc Estrin / The Rag Blog / January 11, 2010
Cass Sunstein is President Obama's Harvard Law School friend, and recently appointed Administrator of the White House Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs.
In a recent scholarly article, he and coauthor Adrian Vermeule take up the question of "Conspiracy Theories: Causes and Cures." (J. Political Philosophy, 7 (2009), 202-227). This is a man with the president's ear. This is a man who would process information and regulate things. What does he here propose?
[W]e suggest a distinctive tactic for breaking up the hard core of extremists who supply conspiracy theories: cognitive infiltration of extremist groups, whereby government agents or their allies (acting either virtually or in real space, and either openly or anonymously) will undermine the crippled epistemology of believers by planting doubts about the theories and stylized facts that circulate within such groups, thereby introducing beneficial cognitive diversity. (Page 219.)
Read this paragraph again. Unpack it. Work your way through the language and the intent. Imagine the application. What do we learn?
- It is "extremists" who "supply" "conspiracy theories."
- Their "hard core" must be "broken up" with distinctive tactics. What tactics?
- "Infiltration" ("cognitive") of groups with questions about official explanations or obfuscations or lies. Who is to infiltrate?
- "Government agents or their allies," virtually (i.e. on-line) or in "real-space" (as at meetings), and "either openly or anonymously," though "infiltration" would imply the latter. What will these agents do?
- Undermine "crippled epistemology" — one's theory and technique of knowledge. How will they do this?
- By "planting doubts" which will "circulate." Will these doubts be beneficial?
- Certainly. Because they will introduce "cognitive diversity."
Put into English, what Sunstein is proposing is government infiltration of groups opposing prevailing policy. Palestinian Liberation? 9/11 Truth? Anti-nuclear power? Stop the wars? End the Fed? Support Nader? Eat the Rich?
It's easy to destroy groups with "cognitive diversity." You just take up meeting time with arguments to the point where people don't come back. You make protest signs which alienate 90% of colleagues. You demand revolutionary violence from pacifist groups.
We expect such tactics from undercover cops, or FBI. There the agents are called "provocateurs" — even if only "cognitive." One learns to smell or deal with them in a group, or recognize trolling online. But even suspicion or partial exposure can “sow uncertainty and distrust within conspiratorial groups [now conflated with conspiracy theory discussion groups] and among their members,” and “raise the costs of organization and communication” — which Sunstein applauds as "desirable." "[N]ew recruits will be suspect and participants in the group’s virtual networks will doubt each other’s bona fides." (p.225).
And are we now expected to applaud such tactics frankly proposed in a scholarly journal by a high-level presidential advisor?
The full text of a slightly earlier version of Sunstein's article is available for download
Marc Estrin. The author gets in the last word.
[Marc Estrin is a writer and activist, living in Burlington, Vermont. His novels, Insect Dreams, The Half Life of Gregor Samsa, The Education of Arnold Hitler, Golem Song, and The Lamentations of Julius Marantz have won critical acclaim. His memoir, Rehearsing With Gods: Photographs and Essays on the Bread & Puppet Theater (with Ron Simon, photographer) won a 2004 theater book of the year award. He is currently working on a novel about the dead Tchaikovsky.]
Source: The Rag Blog
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Hey- thanks for reporting.
I noted you don't have the link to download the paper- here it is:
http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1084585&rec=1&srcabs=199668
"The full text of a slightly earlier version of Sunstein's article is available for download"
Where?
People! Please.
Many conspiracy theories make huge jumps in logic pointing people in the worst possible directions.
For example. One might tell you that a program introduced by a left leaning president is aimed at undermining left leaning groups like Free Palestine rather than being against right wing groups like the Tea Party.
If you see jumps in logic like that, they should be pointed out. Any objection to this way of dealing with disinformation seems a little suspicious to me.
How wrote this article? It's looks like a political hack blurring the divide to give the GOP(neocon, Bush, etc) a better chance. What's the deal Marc?
Palestine and friends.
Forget politicians for a second. America is a Democracy. Support the people that support you. I'm not always happy with the politicians on the left but the people are really cool. All of your American friends lean left. Every last one. We are all leftists, just like Obama. We voted for change, and when he said, yes WE can, WE said it with him.
When you attack Obama, you're undermining the people and ideas that elected him. Ideas like peace. Health Care without the Capitalist middleman collecting bonuses based on denial rates. What does Marc hope to achieve by bashing Obama? Push America toward it's next Bush? Please don't do this to me.
A little help here please?
America has a problem. The people are up against a huge Capitalist empire that dominates our media with disinformation, lies, prejudice, the list goes on…. The LEFT being PEOPLE has such a hard time being herd that OUR politicians almost have to be corrupt just to pay for a campaign. If we had more help, and less disinformation we would have that problem. OUR politicians are bought and paid for because they have to fund enough media to combat disinformation like this article. STOP undermining your friends. Stand with the people, they are all on the LEFT!
James Hovland, a product of freedom
* Episode 3 Global Warming
Kum-ba-yah James. Someone who is more than likely reading here (and knows who he is:) had more sense and foresight about Obama prior to his election than you do after a year of him.
Pass the marshmallows please, the chocolate is already melting on the graham crackers.
Note: I am referring to sitting around the campfire singing Kum-ba-yah making samores. As an American it makes me tired that the "left" is not absolutely outraged after all the effort they put into electing this disappointing charlatan. If your bubble hasn't burst yet, then naivete reigns supreme.
Robin.
Did you like Bush?
James,
The answer to that has no bearing on my feelings for Obama.
Palestine Think Tank » Got Fascism? : Obama Advisor Promotes 'Cognitive Infiltration'…
Your government appointees at work: Cass Sunstein seeks "cognitive" provocateurs. Cass Sunstein is President Obama's Harvard Law School friend, and recently appointed Administrator of the White House Office of Information and Regulatory Affa…
As James states, Obama has leaned left and gained much US voter support for doing so, The GOP's reactionary action made the Tea Party made in the basic image of Obama's populist apeal to lower income voters, many of which vote GOP.
The author of this article may not be homing in on the terrible party wars in the US as much as in the war of ideas throughout the modern internet world and in alternative press venues. Despite the lack of specificity, the general rant is about destroying the credibility of thinkers outside of the US empire's box, which is not democracy, free speach or even capitalism, it's the end of peoples rights of dissent against what they percieve to be an unjust governance, no matter any parties or factions, this is an erosion of free thinking by empire's Harvard elite cadres which support the way forward as heeling to the methods of deception and division of resistance by sewing seeds of doubt.
In history who are the doubters, the gullible and the sell outs to empire's wars, and denigrations of soverign peoples ability to govern self determining, without US hubris inserting itself in their nations and commercial activities as hegemon? They are the filthy rich who stand to gain from being a member incorporate of empire, Harvard, The Democratic party, the Obama presidency and US wars of state terrorism are defended by the wealthiest people to the detriment of the poor.
When I try to make good contacts with others who feel marginalised by the war on terror, the Israeli occupation or the CIA constant abuse of the Al Qaida ruse to blame their acts of debauchery in Islamic peoples nations on some phantom menace who has never even been charged due to a lack of evidence, I am derided, thretened and demonised as a possible threat to national security, If I state that I support Al Qaida, I can be summarily dissmissed as among the living, without any investigation into my true feelings whatsoever, BUT….
When the CIA recruits for Al Qaida, useing foreign intel ops from Arab nations, this is what, OK? Really?
When The USA used Islamic fighters to kill Russias occupation of Afghanistan it's OK, when I say this is ugly, I'm a terrorist sympathiser when in fact I declare my own CIA to be the author of Al Qaida, and it's finisher, so what, I'm a conspiracy theorist with bad brains ar a realist with Harvard grads breathing down my neck, seeking to hide the truth of US complicity in 911. Odd, isn't it, that people who gather information, FACTS correlate it, corroberate it and disseminate it to the people wh ith honest analysis, are demonised and ruined by sychophants for state sponsored terrorism who in fact, DO conspire with sedition forces to undermine nations, destabilise them and demonise innocent people with blasphemous lies about their religion, but activists against this need to be what divided and conquered by deceptive agents of empire seeking to procure a paycheck from the beast by wring falsely in threads that show truth as their mantle and mane, whom is the liar in need of ouster and division, and whom the people dying in the efforts to dislodge the assholes who started these state sponsored campaigns of ruse, sedition and conspiracy to ruin the Arabs, Persians and Asian peoples as, what? primitive? radical? conspiracy obsessed?
Cass Sunstien is just another balk eye on Obama's list of empires great Harvard windbags who suck the life from innocent resistance and destroy free speech by their lies.
Harvard drinks from the freemasons skull of death and sews these lies as truth, who pays this back, gutless rich boys and girls> Who makes this right? who makes peace after you fucking wars drain the life from nations> who will conspire to save your bloddy asses when the Harvard grads are maligned as fuck ups for empire, demons who drink from skulls, free masons deciding for the planet who reigns and who dies, who fixes this set of conspiracies, who saves you from your own sadness and shame by stateing the truth, which COULD set YOU free, but imprisons Harvard as a nemisis to the poor, no hope their, right, poor people dont go to Harvard, they go to Howard Zinn and learn the difference between the sicknesses sold at Harvard and the whole truth, nothing but the truth.
I know that Sunstien is targeting the Tea Party and the GOP, but since when is the public statement of this mission matching the scope and depth of it's reality? America just can't stop lying about itself to itself, can it?
Clarity benefits the people, blurring reality benefits crooks.
Just recently, members of Congress wrote a letter to the president asking for help to break the siege on Gaza. Look close at this list of names who signed it.
This is how the list reads.
Name(party-state)
Example: Jim McDermott (D-WA)
Jim is a Democrat from Washington. (D-WA)
If Jim was a Republican, it would read (R-WA)
Look for the lean. D leans left. R leans right.
Here is the complete list.
Jim McDermott (D-WA)
Keith Ellison (D-MN)
Lois Capps (D-CA)
William Delahunt (D-MA)
Tammy Baldwin (D-WI)
Raul Grijalva (D-AZ)
Bob Filner (D-CA)
James McGovern (D-MA)
John Conyers (D-MI)
Fortney Pete Stark (D-CA)
Betty McCollum (D-MN)
Barbara Lee (D-CA)
James P. Moran (D-VA)
Maurice Hinchey (D-NY)
Adam Smith (D-WA)
David Price (D-NC)
Peter DeFazio (D-OR)
Loretta Sanchez (D-CA)
Earl Blumenauer (D-OR)
Yvette Clarke (D-NY)
Donald Payne (D-NJ)
Michael Capuano (D-MA)
Andre Carson (D-IN)
Sam Farr (D-CA)
Peter Welch (D-VT)
John Tierney (D-MA)
Chaka Fattah (D-PA)
Elijah Cummings (D-MD)
Gwen Moore (D-WI)
Mary Jo Kilroy (D-OH)
John Olver (D-MA)
Stephen Lynch (D-MA)
James Oberstar (D-MN)
Bruce Braley (D-IA)
Marcy Kaptur (D-OH)
Rush Holt (D-NJ)
Bill Pascrell (D-NJ)
Joe Sestak (D-PA)
Jim Himes (D-CT)
Nick Rahall II (D-WV)
John Yarmuth (D-KY)
Michael Honda (D-CA)
Jay Inslee (D-WA)
Donna Edwards (D-MD)
Lynn Woolsey (D-CA)
John Dingell (D-MI)
Brian Baird (D-WA)
Paul Tonko (D-NY)
Jackie Speier (D-CA)
Diane Watson (D-CA)
George Miller (D-CA)
Glenn Nye (D-VA)
Eric Massa (D-NY)
Carolyn Kilpatrick (D-MI)
Maybe I over looked something here, but I didn't see a single Republican on that list. Is there?
If you want to know what the Republican problem is, just look at their media.
Google News (location:USA "Islamo") Search!
Google News (location:USA "prejudice") Search!
Take the time to get to know our right-wingers, and the media that shapes their opinions. Enjoy the tea.
Does Palestine want America to be a better friend? More helpful?
We are half way there. The other half is still prejudice, and the polls prove it. Why is America prejudice?
The truth is, America waged two 'unjust' wars under the Bush administration, and they spread. How did that happen? To wage war from a Democracy, it must be portrayed as 'just and necessary'. Our governments power is tied to public opinion. That's where the media and propaganda comes in.
Demonising the enemy causes prejudice, hate, racism, and fear, in a deliberate attempt to overcome our natural objection to killing one another.
Connect the dots…
Google News (location:USA "Islamo") Search!
Google News (location:USA "prejudice") Search!
How does the anti-Muslim prejudice effect support for Palestine?
Politics in America?
What about the apathy for collateral damage?
anti-Muslim violence and discrimination?
If you understand how an unjust war is waged, can you figure out how to stop it?
Start here. The year is 2010, the world is connected, and war has opened our eyes.
Rest assured, the world has never seen the desire for peace unleashed under these circumstances.
My comment got cut off.
If Palestine, Kashmir, and others want our help, we need their's.
I can not speak for Palestine, nor can any American in the western media. You have to represent yourself, and do so in a way that supports peace rather than defending actions. Undermine the prejudice, don't oppose it. No confrontation necessary. Positive emotions will produce positive results. Negative emotions will produce negative results. Pick your strategy.
Comments and articles in the Western media are an easy way for anyone to help. Commenting in the news will get you in front of your target audience better than any blog. I'm registered everywhere.
The grand conspiracy of it all is simple. The overwhelming mass of the global peace movements is intent on taking over the world. It's time for peace, and we're not backing down.
An example of "Beneficial Cognitive Diversity":
http://print-humanbeingsfirst.blogspot.com/2010/03/beneficial-cognitive-diversity-example.html
Spotting it can be both straightforward, Type-1: retains the core-axioms of empire while spinnng a believeable yarn often rooted in what's visible; as well as rather complicated.
The latter can principally be broken down into two overarching categories. Type-2: ostensibly challenges the axioms of empire with mantras that can span the gamut of thought, from far-out like "alien invasion", to more believable like "space based weapons" did it.
And Type-3: appears to be genuine dissent, says all the right things, challenges many of the core-axioms of empire, but masks-out one or more crucial players and/or axioms, or, over-emphasises one or more players over others, thus crafting a devilsh red herring. It can perhaps be better characterized as "limited hangout" or "modified limited hangout" (Nixon vintage – see explanation on Wiki).
One other example of "cognitive infiltration" at Type-1 is this one:
http://print-humanbeingsfirst.blogspot.com/2008/12/letter-paul-craig-roberts-rebuttal.html
Examples of Type-2 may be gleaned in the attempts to create "diversity of focus" in the 911 Truth Movement by by many of the imaginative champions of "inside job". I am glad that the empiricism of the genuine process of science kinda prevailed over that one (Steven Jones's and Neils Harith's work on Thermite).
But Type-3 is the most insidious of them all. I won't cite any current examples in this comment except to suggest that much of avantgarde dissent may be just that! I also refer the reader of this comment to the book by Fletcher Prouty: Secret Team, to learn the characteristics of Type-3. In my view, Prouty's discourse is an excellent example of "limited hangout".
The political science behind these "cognitive infiltration", though rather obvious, is not suffiiciently captured in Sunstein's academic gibberish which merely wraps in jargon what have been a long process and known to many as COINTELPRO and domestic undercover counter-insurgency ops. The theory behind it, of why manufacturing both consent and dissent is necessary for sustaining "imperial mobilization", is perhaps best learned from the masters of modern psyop and propaganda, Edward Bernays and Adolph Hitler:
print-humanbeingsfirst.blogspot.com/2008/06/wmd-master-social-science.html
Zahir Ebrahim
Project Humanbeingsfirst.org